The moral economy of mobile phones implies a field of shifting relations among consumers, companies and state actors, all of whom have their own ideas about what is good, fair and just. These ideas inform the ways in which, for example: consumers acquire and use mobile phones; companies market and sell voice, SMS and data subscriptions; and state actors regulate both everyday use of mobile phones and market activity around mobile phones. Ambivalence and disagreement about who owes what to whom is thus an integral feature of the moral economy of mobile phones.

 

Over the last ten years, the liberalization of telecommunications markets in many Pacific Islands countries has spurred exponential growth in the use and distribution of mobile phones. Digicel, a privately owned company headquartered in Jamaica and operating across the Caribbean, expanded into the Pacific in 2006, precipitating what some have called a “digital revolution.” In Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Vanuatu, Digicel now dominates the market. In Fiji, Vodafone Fiji commands the largest share of the market while Digicel attempts to enlarge its presence. In 2014, the Vodafone Group PLC, the gigantic British multinational company, sold its 49 per cent stake in Vodafone Fiji to the Fiji National Provident Fund, making Vodafone Fiji wholly locally owned. In the same year, Vodafone Group PLC entered into a partnership with bmobile, one of Digicel's rivals in PNG, in order to enhance competition.

 

In this talk I draw upon ethnographic research in Fiji to highlight the agency of different actors in shaping the moral economy of mobile phones. Attending to the shifting relations among consumers, companies and state actors, this talk identifies and evaluates what is at stake and for whom in the moral economy of mobile phones.